How To Stop Squirrels From Chewing Wood (Do This!)

Wood is a material that is important to many different animals, including squirrels, as it helps to file their continually growing teeth. Therefore, you may see teeth marks from squirrels on places like your deck, fencing, birdhouse posts, wood siding, and more. But you can stop these creatures from chewing your wood by taking a few steps.

To stop squirrels from chewing your wood, cut down trees and bushes that help squirrels gain access to any wood that’s higher up. Then, place porcupine wire where the squirrels usually sit while chewing your wood—spread repellent where the squirrels chew as well as a taste deterrent.

While squirrels themselves are relatively harmless, they do cause damage to wood on your property. Let this article serve as a guide to help you keep these mischievous creatures from chewing your wood. Additionally, we’ve added several alternative methods to deter their chewing as well.

Something else you can do is create your own repellent by crushing 1 cup of chili peppers in 1 gallon of water. You will then want to place a cover on the container and put it in the sun for about a week. When that week is up, strain the mixture through a cheesecloth and pour it into a water bottle to apply.

You can also place mothballs around the wooden area that they chew or use cat or dog hair and make clumps as big as grapefruit. Then, place them around the areas to release the scent of a dog or cat, which will make the squirrel unlikely to come around.

Garlic has an extremely strong odor that will make the squirrels think twice about chewing your wood. You can buy a jar of minced garlic and mix it with white distilled vinegar or apple cider vinegar. This mixture will be so pungent that the squirrels won’t want to eat your wood.

Just mix it up and put it into a spray bottle. Then, you can go and spray it on any surfaces that you want the squirrels to stop chewing on. However, before applying it, you will want to let the mixture sit for several days so that the flavors can combine. This is also safe to use on your plants as well.

Another interesting way to keep squirrels from chewing on surfaces is by applying diaper rash cream to the area. You can mix this with hot water and put it in a spray bottle to get the zinc oxide to penetrate the wood.

The zinc oxide helps give a numbing effect to the squirrel’s tongue, will discourage it from chewing that area. Instead of diaper rash cream, you can also use potent lotion instead. It still produces that same bitter flavor, which will keep them from wanting to chew on the wood.

However, these plants don’t only repel squirrels, but they repel insects such as mosquitoes, especially the peppermint. Squirrels dislike the smell and taste of peppermint, so this will help to deter them. If you don’t want to plant a peppermint plant, you can use peppermint essential oils. This works just as great, if not better, due to the strength of the oil.

You can soak some cotton balls in the oils for the peppermint solution and lay them on the wood. Or you can also put 100% oil into the spray bottle and spray it on the wood if you wish instead.

Squirrels are fun to observe, but they can be extremely pesky when they decide to chew on your wooden fence or the wooden siding of your home. By applying different taste deterrents and squirrel repellents, you can keep them from chewing on your wood.

Moreover, if you found that they like to chew in a higher area on top of your home or shed, then you may also need to trim your trees and bushes back a bit. Don’t forget any vine placements at the front that they can climb up. This will keep them from reaching the spots higher up in your home.

While it’s possible, you could always resort to traps, but these should be humane catch and release traps. But the most effective way overall is by using chemical sprays to keep the squirrels from chewing and the natural methods that we’ve listed. We hope this guide has been helpful to you; good luck!